Q: How can you transform public space?
A: If you want to change something you have to change something in the process. Through putting a device with a certain function in public space one creates a program.

Q: How can this device have a lasting impact?
A: The function and impact of an object or space dissipate and is eventually understood. In order for it to be carried on one has to create dynamic change instead of static, through for example involvement.

Q: How can you create dynamic change?
A: Through setting up a set of necessary rules. You have to reintroduce social responsibilities.

Q: What kind of social responsibilities?
A: Through giving a function to a public space. Take for example the skate-board places. Skateboarders take care of this space/place because they use it which in turn makes them feel responsible for it. In order for this to happen a group of people has to decide that this is ‘their’ space and take care of it.

Q: What are social responsibilities connected to?
A: Social responsibilities are connected to certain privileges. Give people privileges but let them do something in return

An example for dynamic change is a project in Haarlem, Reinaldapark, that Jan Konings initiated. The park was built on a former refuse-dump which caused old garbage to resurface. Therefore the municipality wants to clean up the park and is drawing up new development plans. During this transitional period Jan will use the park as an experimental platform to develop new ways of usage. On sight, he will build a working space pavilion where visitors can come to socialize and use building materials to create their own park environment. The municipality has decided to incorporate the most successful results in their master plan.

Community gathering in Reinlandpark

In this meeting Gerrit Oorthuys would like to share his historical expertise on Moscow and St.Petersburg with us. Gerrit will talk about how both cities developed and how you can divide Moscow in several layers of time and also will give us insight in important architectural places. For this he will show dia’s from his personal archive that he collected during several visits to Russia.

Gerrit Oorthuys (architect and historian), in the 80’s he taught at the TU Delft and Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. During the Khrushchev period, Gerrit was able to do research on Constructivist in the Russian archives. This resulted in several exhibitions, trips to Russia and further research. Together with Rem Koolhaas he did a research project on the work of Ivan Leonidov.* He was one of the founders of the chair collection at the Faculty of Architecture in Delft. (article and clip are in Dutch). His photo archive has collections from microrayons in Russia and the Bijlmer (a Dutch Micro Rayon), to constructivist buildings in Russia.

Round table discussion will take place this Wednesday, June 24! | 19:00 – 22:00 | Auditorium U | Faculty of Architecture in Delft. We will start a bit earlier as Gerrit would like to spend more time on sharing his expertise with us than to focus too much on the discussion.

* From: Lessons: Tupker-Risselada : a double portrait of Dutch architectural education, 1953/

What can urban planners, architects and designers learn from the Efteling (a Dutch themepark)?

‘A lot’, says Jan Konings, an industrial designer. ‘Because the Efteling knows exactly how to tie the visitor to the park. With musical mushrooms for example and Holle Bolle Gijs, a caricature trash bin ‘PAPIER HIER!’. These sort of simple attractions should be part of cities, says Konings, to freshen up the boring, monotonous and impersonal new suburbia.

The evening will centre around the margins that architect, planners and designers forget in public space. We will focus on new ways/methods to interpret public space, Jan Konings calls them ‘infiltrations’  in order to have a more dynamic collective space. Jan and Timo will show examples of micro urban projects that they conducted and plan to develop in the future.

Jan Konings is an industrial designer. He is co-founder of the office Ral2005, that specializes in design for public space. Previously he co-founded the office Schie 2.0 and together with Jurgen Bey he had the design office Konings.

Timo De Rijk is a design-historian at the Faculty of Industrial Design at the TU Delft. Next to that he is a guest-lecturer at the Design Academy Eindhoven. He is editor of the Dutch Design Annual and has published several other books such as ‘Under Cover’ (with Ed van Hinte) and ‘The World According to Concrete’ (editor).

The round table discussion will take place June 22, this Monday!!! | 19:30 – 22:00 | Auditorium U | Faculty of Architecture in Delft.

Before the meeting please think about intermediates that could stimulates the connection of:

- People with other people

- People with products

- People with public space

Images © copyright Jan Konings, Droog Design, RAL2005

Hereby we would like to invite you for the coming round round table discussion this Thursday with Bart Goldhoorn and Axel Kilian. We will focusses on the question:
“How can architects and industrial designers adapt mass production and pref-fab techniques in order to design a sustainable collective living space?”

Bart Goldhoorn will talk about the Biennale project that he is currently preparing for September 2009. It will focus on the so-called Micro Rayon 2.0; new microrayons whereby architects use pre-fabrication and mass production techniques to create non standard buildings versus the existing principles of building a microrayon. Also he will show the condition, conflicts and possible additions for existing micro rayons in Russia.

Next to this Axel Kilian will show his unorthodox design approach on architecture and design.
Axel Kilian currently is an Assistant Professor at the TU Delft and holds a PhD and SMArchS in Design and Computation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on Design Exploration in Architecture and Design based on computational models.

The round table discussion will take place This Thursday!!! | 19:30 – 22:00 | Auditorium U | the Faculty of Architecture in Delft.

Please try to read the Biennale text and the ’secret’ speech of Nikita Krushchev on pre-fabrication from December 7, 1954 and published in Project Russia #25

Images © copyright Project Russia originally from Soviet catalogues for building sector

Anna Fenko stated that Moscow reacted on 70 years of Communist repression in an extravagant way. On the one hand the city center has become a consumer paradise for the very rich (cup of coffee: $10), and on the other the outskirts of Moscow turned into a theater of street vendors, which have no legal permission and due to the lack of regulation attract all sorts of criminal activities.

Anna Fenko considered several problems that are occuring throughout the city:

Public transport:
Moscow is stuffed with traffic jams every day from 6.30 in the morning througout the evening, even at night in the historical center traffic jams are not uncommon. One of the causes of this phenomenon is that large parts of the residential areas of Moscow are not connected to any form of public transport. Moscow inhabitants are therefore more likely to travel by car, even in inner-city journeys.

Parking spaces:
Because of the abundance of cars in Moscow, parking spaces are very rare. Next to that the climate conditions in winter led to a development of parking sheds, a primitive form of a parking garage. Basically just a steel shed, made out of poor quality metal, that protects the car from large amounts of snow.

(Illegal) Street Markets:
As a result of the overpriced shops in the center and the mega-stores outside the city, spontaneous street markets arose where people sell goods and food in limited amounts and without any regulation. These temporary markets are non cohesive and turned out to be an easy target for corrupt police-officers. the lack of regulation also causes that a certain amount of criminal activity surrounds street vendors.

Waste and Garbage
The unregulated street markets cause not only low quality goods and in some cases criminal activities, but also a large amount of waste. This waste is not distributed or cleaned because the infrastructure for cleaning of those street markets obviously does not exist. Apart from the city centre, the suburban areas are therefore wastelands of trash and garbage.

These problems occur on different scales in the city of Moscow. From citywide transport problems and traffic jams to local problems with illegal street markets and parking troubles. One of the questions was: How can architects, sociologists, or industrial designers help to solve these problems? Anna Fenko began the discussion in reaction to some questions that marketing and commercial consumption might be involved as a leading instrument in human behaviour, to say that the foremost reason for this ’shopping-mania’ was the 70 year long repression of consumer needs.

The discussion continued with several examples from the homework assignments and some ideas on what the Future Faculty team could actually do in Russia. It seems that the next step at this moment is to define a specific location or neighbourhood in Moscow where Future Faculty could do research or something else. If we have a location, we have people, possible participants and a concrete setting for any activity.

Next to the location it is important to collect all concrete ideas, wheter they are design proposals, art installations, street furniture, video-documentaries that are interesting in the context of this project. After collecting these ideas a decision should be made to choose either one of those ideas or several that the team could work on.

Alternatively/additionally please give some examples of good and bad design interventions.

Reading

Boym, Svetlana. “Nostalgia, Moscow Style”. Harvard Design Magazine, 2001.

Geraci, John. “The Future of Our Cities: Open, Crowdsourced, and Participatory“, April 6th, 2009.

Related Links

Putting People First, Daily insights on user experience, experience design and people-centered innovation.

Also here are some images of brutalist architecture for inspiration, from Claudia Muresan, one of our collaborators.

Some questions to think about:
- is a neighborhood necessary?
- how are neighborhoods different in urban and rural settings?
- what is the ideal neighborhood (please bring some pictures of ideal neighborhoods)?

Also, please read the Communist Manifesto in preparation for our discussion.

International participants who can’t join the round table discussion, you can join the project by sending your thoughts and images via the mail!